1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates genes related to salt or drought stress resistances, transformed plants with the same, and methods for preparing thereof.
2. Background of Technique
Due to their sessile nature, higher plants are constantly faced with various adverse environmental factors, including drought, high salt, heavy metals, cold, heat shock, and ozone, during their whole life span. These abiotic stresses are a limiting factor for the growth and development of crop plants. Water deficiency causes dramatic reduction of crop production globally, and the decreasing availability of fresh water may pose a future threat to humans and higher plants. Plants have diverse defense strategies to enhance their tolerance to transient and long-term water shortages by triggering signaling network pathways and inducing stress-responsive genes. The cellular and genetic defense mechanisms in response to water stress have been widely documented (Shinozaki and Yamaguchi-Shinozaki, 2007). However, for stress tolerance or sensitivity, our knowledge concerning the biological functions of stress-related genes in higher plants is still rudimentary. Therefore, it is important to study the functions of stress responsive genes to increase the productivity and distribution of crop plants.
The present inventors identified and isolated genes AtSRG1 and AtSRG2 genes which are induced in response to high salt or dehydration in Arabidopsis plants, and analyzed phenotypes of knock-out mutants thereof.
Throughout this application, various publications and patents are referred and citations are provided in parentheses. The disclosures of these publications and patents in their entities are hereby incorporated by references into this application in order to fully describe this invention and the state of the art to which this invention pertains.